An Introduction and Long-Term Viability of Community Sustainable Agriculture Projects within Marginalised Communities

This study assesses the socio-cultural viability of community sustainable agriculture projects—with a focus on permaculture and the use of traditional knowledge and practices as examples of this—within a First Nations community in the Pacific Northwest (USA).A permaculture community project was undertaken at the Northwest Indian Treatment Centre (Washington State) in order to determine participant understanding and perception of food sovereignty and security prior to the project initiation, changes during participation, long-term attitudes toward such projects, and potential barriers to project longevity and impact. The initial set-up of the project included an analysis of soil quality to determine whether the area would support this approach to food production. The Northwest First Nation project serves as a case study to demonstrate the benefits of permaculture and to provide an action plan that ensures the longevity of permaculture practices in relation to soil quality.This study is multidisciplinary and follows the theoretical framework of permaculture, which shifts the view of traditional knowledge as being rudimentary and basic to one that recognizes its intricacies and complexities, while offering an alternative knowledge perspective and management of small-scale agricultural food production systems that has been little studied by the scientific community.